Establishing a Forex trading system is crucial if you want to make steady profit in the market. What you should understand however is that there is no ‘perfect’ system available today. Thanks to the volatility of the market, every trader generates profit differently. The good news is that for the most part, all of them make use of the same basics when generating their Forex trading system:

A pretty common factor utilized in systems would be the ‘trend following’ which essentially finds patterns or trends overtime. For example, traders may find that during certain times of the year, a particular currency enjoys a steady rise before dropping back again at the start of a specific month.

Technical analysis also includes the use and comparison of GDP, price index, demand and supply, and even the political situation of a country to fully comprehend how the currency will fare for the next trading session or overtime.

Fundamental Analysis

As opposed to technical, fundamental analysis takes into account other factors that are equally logical. For the most part however, fundamentals focus on supply and demand as the primary driving factors of the Forex market.

This system also puts weight on a sentiment-driven market. This refers to the ‘mood’ of the big investors when it comes to the market. Hence, if the big fish are leaning towards are a particular currency, then this significantly affects the ‘supply and demand’ of the said currency, thereby affecting how the Forex market stands. The ‘mood’ is the sentiment of the majority of investors to which a private investor must look at to ascertain their next move.

Long Term and Short Term

Now the question is: do both techniques apply for short-term and long-term trading? The answer is: yes. It doesn’t matter if you’re a day trader or there for the long haul – technical and fundamental analysis remain relevant factors in the process.

The best Forex trading system however,would be a combination of technical and fundamental analysis with more attention given to the former. Although Fundamental Analysis has been proven to work, the statistics offered by Technical tends to produce better and more accurate results overtime. The good news is that in some instances, these two analysis options overlap, which should make your trading process easier.

According to many fundamental analysts, fundamental analysis is a time-consuming process. In fact, in the 90s, when computers and automation started becoming common tools, the analysis approach’s popularity began to dwindle. To keep up with the fast-paced demands of the foreign exchange market in the modern world, the traditional method seemed like it needed to go. However, since its usefulness remains, tech-savvy fundamental analysts determined a way to improve the elaborate analysis approach; they designed fundamental analysis software.

Fundamental Analysis 101

Fundamental analysis refers to the state of the forex market with regard to the overall economic conditions; it gives light to factors such as economic production, interest rates, employment, and GDP (or Gross Domestic Product). Its findings are based on data that comes from historical and present-day reports. As the process revolves around the evaluation of market performance, it adheres to the primary goal of yielding informative predictions.

Typical Features of Fundamental Analysis Software

An advantage of the employment of fundamental analysis software is that it addresses the fact that the forex market can be an extremely volatile market; it comes with a myriad of useful features to give light to market volatility. With its design, accomplishing basic and advanced fundamental analysis procedures is possible.

Features include:

Automatic order execution – also called OCO (or One Cancels Other) or OCA (or One Cancels All); it allows the placement of 2 orders (i.e. a sell limit order and a buy limit order) and automatically cancels one after an initial order execution

Back-testing methods – enables forex traders to attempt their odds in a hypothetical market; traders can test the usefulness of strategies and algorithms

Built-in and custom trading strategies – includes validated trading strategies, as well as those that are in need of trader input

Data feed – includes a variety of data feeds; it enables the benefits of relying on real–time data, delayed data, and EOD (or End of Day) data

Informers – includes regarding the availability of significant economic data

Calendar as a Fundamental Analyst’s Tool

An important component of fundamental analysis software is its feature of a forex calendar. It can provide necessary details regarding events, time, previous, expected, and actual currency values, as well as influenced currencies. It enables a trader to perform analysis according to a selected time zone; particularly, it privileges a trader to peek at a list of upcoming economic events, which ultimately rewards him with the opportunity of strategizing prior to his entry in the forex market.

Focus on One Currency Pair (guest article)

When it comes to forex trading, specialization and not diversification is the key to success. While it may seem that by focusing on a single pair you are putting all your eggs in one basket, in fact, you are actually increasing your chances of success. Successfully trading currencies requires a lot of analysis of the market, and it is easier to do that by completely familiarizing yourself with a single pair so that you can more readily identify trading opportunities.

What are the benefits of focusing on a single pair? You can more readily study the economies those currencies come from so that you can better understand the fundamental factors that affect their values. It is also important to understand that just because a currency pair shares a currency with another pair does not mean that they will behave in the same way. For example, the USD/EUR will behave differently from the USD/JPY even though they both include the US dollar. Other characteristics of currency pairs that you need to keep in mind is that they behave differently at different times of the trading day and their values move at different speeds.

In addition, by studying a single pair, you will be able to observe how its values change over time. This can give you greater insight into how it will react in the present under particular political and economic developments. This may allow you to identify trading opportunities that other traders with less knowledge and experience may not see.

Of course, there are traders who would argue the opposite position, that by focusing on a single pair they are actually limiting their profit opportunities. But if you are just starting out as a forex trader and still learning the basics, you are better off focusing on a single pair rather than trying to study several pairs at once.

How do you choose which currency pair to specialize in when you’re starting out? Here are some suggestions.

Choose a major pair that is traded a lot. These include those that have the US dollar as one of the pairs (USD/JPY, EUR/USD, USD/CHF). The main advantage of trading one of these pairs is that they enjoy a lot of liquidity and have a lot of volatility. This means that they generate strong trading signals that you can easily detect to open a trade.

Choose a pair that includes your home country’s currency. Since you will essentially have to study the economies of two countries when you focus on a pair, you can make your job easier since you already understand how the economy of your own country works. You also have a greater understanding of the factors that affect the values of your own currency.

Let’s say you want to gauge the effectiveness of a nation’s monetary policy in relation to the exchange rates of particular currencies.

A way of achieving this is to take into account the amount of monetary supplies that are about to go into circulation. Since it can be laborious (and also, there’s a big chance of inaccurate findings) to determine the supplies according to your own reports, bringing in an economic indicator is a wise tactic.

In such a case, the particular economic indicator to turn to is the Monetary Model.

What Is the Monetary Model?

The Monetary Model is an economic indicator that highlights the role of a country’s monetary policy in the establishment of currency exchange rates; it draws light on the monetary supplies of current trading accounts and how they can impact the foreign exchange market. To have a clue as to why rates are too high or too low, and why they can sometimes rise and drop unexpectedly, grasping the concept behind the theory is a technique.

Theory Basis

The Monetary Model is just like many economic indicators; although it provides valuable information, it presents conflicting aspects. For instance, it goes against a statement of another economic indicator, the Asset Market Model; while the Monetary Model revolves around the reports on current trading accounts, the Asset Market Model gives importance to capital trading accounts.

Particularly, the Monetary Model is based on 2 things: (1) the need for perfect market and economic conditions, and (2) the assumption that comes from economic theorists.

The Arguments

According to different economic theorists, the Monetary Model comes with a downside; it has certain restrictions that may not make it suitable for just any market condition. One restriction, in particular, is that it lacks consideration for incoming trade flows.

In a way, the Monetary Model vouches for the immediate depreciation of a currency due to a potential raise in inflation rates. While this supposition is true, a reverse situation is also true; this negates the whole arrangement, and gives the economic indicator a questionable credibility.

Due to such a limitation, the Monetary Model can put a trader at risk. He may have a report of monetary supplies, but not in a generic perspective; it means that, although he can analyze market and economic conditions, there may be integral components that he remains uninformed of.

So, Is the Monetary Model a Good Indicator?

Overall, yes, the Monetary Model is a good indicator; it is reliable and can yield profitable results. It can trigger inaccurate predictions due to incorrect employment, but just like most technical analysis tools, its effectiveness can be fine-tuned with brilliant trading strategies and flawless money management skills. And, if another set of indicators enter the picture, there’s more than 50% chance of establishing strong positions in the forex market.

Below is a guest post from Mr. Zahir from MTrading India. It is good to get other people’s explanation of trading Forex, which may give the reader a better understanding coming from a slightly different angle. Enjoy!

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Basically, you can trade in the forex market via 3 ways: the forwards market, futures market, and spot market, with the spot market being the largest among the three. For one, the underlying asset that futures and forwards trading are based on the spot market assets.

The futures market used to be the most popular market in the past simply because of the fact that it had been made available to individual traders for a long time – before individual investors gained access to the spot market. However, with the advent of electronic or online trading, the spot market experienced a sudden surge in popularity, particularly with speculators and individual investors. In no time, it surpassed the other markets in terms of size and popularity.

The Spot Market

Simply put, this is the market where you can buy and sell currencies based on the prevailing rates, which are dictated by supply and demand. Various factors, in turn, affect supply and demand including the current political climate (both locally and internationally), economic performance, interest rates, and a particular currency’s expected performance against another.

A finalized transaction is called a “spot deal,” a bilateral deal whereby one party delivers the agreed amount of currency to another, and in turn receives the corresponding amount in the counter currency based on the agreed exchange rate. Positions are closed with cash settlements. While the transactions are generally considered as current or in the present time, the actual settlements can take up to two days.

The Forwards Market and the Futures Market

The futures and forwards markets, unlike the spot market where actual currencies are traded, involve contracts between two parties representing claims to a specific currency. The currency is stated at a given unit price that is to be settled at a future agreed date.

Forwards contracts are sold and bought over the counter, with the terms determined by the contracting parties. On the other hand, a futures contract is sold and bought based on standard sizes and settlement dates. Transactions are regulated by the National Futures Association.

Futures market contracts contain specific details such as the number of traded units, settlement and delivery dates, and the fixed minimum price increments. The exchange serves as the trader’s counterpart that provides clearance and settlement.

Both forwards and futures contracts are binding and closed with cash settlements upon maturity, although a contract may be sold or bought before its expiry date.

Both types of contract can provide some form of risk protection in currency trading. In many cases, the futures and forwards markets are used by large international companies as a hedge against fluctuations in future currency exchange rates. There are cases, however, when speculators trade in these markets too.

I have some new ideas with regards to either modifying one of my current Forex Trading EAs (Expert Advisor or Trading Robot), or completely building a new one from scratch. It all depends on what my Programmer thinks and and how much work is involved. Sometimes it is just easier to start from scratch. This first video just covers the basics. It is far from perfect and requires a lot more testing. I am putting these ideas out to my forex trading contacts so I can get some feedback etc. Just another set of eyes to pick my ideas apart. If anyone wants to get involved, feel free to email me at accurateforextrader@gmail.com

As you can see from the title, this is video no.1. I may do further videos to explain certain points, but this one should give you a pretty good idea on what I am thinking about. Basically looking to reduce risk quickly, take re-entries if they present and manage open trades. Still a fair bit of work to be done, but I do have to start somewhere.

I just put a basic video on YouTube showing a simple way I trade the 1hr charts. Basically I use a couple of my favourite custom MT4 indicators, the MACD Platinum and QQE Adv in conjunction with a Linear Weighted Moving Average. I will only take trades based on the trend of the Daily chart. This will ensure that a lot of false moves are avoided. Not perfect but a good simple sustem that will be profitable over the long run. It is up to the individual Trader how they manage their open trades, but I do give one idea in the video where you could open multiple trades in one direction and manage them as a package with the help of a spreadsheet I had made. Plenty of options available, so pick what best suits your own style. If anyone would like any of these custom MT4 indicators or the spreadsheet I mentioned, feel free to contact me and I’ll send you the info for no cost.

I have built a couple of EAs based on these same indicators, and I’ll be doing up further videos sometime in the future to demostrate these in action. Again, nothing to sell here and these EAs will be freely available to anyone that asks.

I came across an interesting blog post the other day by Hugh Kimura of Trading Heroes that was titled ‘How to get started with incremental automation in forex trading’. You can read the full article here. It’s not a bad read, and while you are at, add his site to your favourites as there are plenty of good articles and interviews there for Forex traders to check out.

Anyway, this article got me thinking about a post I replied to in one of my threads on the Forex Factory Forum, where I spoke about something very similar. Forex factory is not a bad trading resource if you are after some very specific information, but keep in mind, it is similar to a lot of other forums where you have people jumping all over you if you dare suggest something that doesn’t fit the norm or their understanding of how trading should be done. I basically use any trading forum to bounce ideas around as I know there are traders out there that are way smarter than me that may offer me some constructive feedback etc, which i do appreciate. I also like to use them to help other traders out when I can by offering free access to any of my custom indicators, EAs or trading ideas.

But here is a copy of the post I mentioned above that refers to some of my thoughts on Forex Trading and that of semi-automation;

How goes it? Yes still trying but now having some decent success, but I wouldn’t be silly enough to think that the holy grail is out there. But I will explain some of my thoughts when it comes to forex trading. Anyone that has seen any of my threads in this forum will know that I tend to look for slightly obscure ways to trade. I don’t subscribe to what most traders would consider the norm ie using stops, risk reward ratios, support resistance etc. All good in theory but not suited to everyone. I’m not saying I am silly about the way I trade, but most would find it slightly left field.

I love my trading robots but I don’t rely on them totally. I love trading forex but I don’t want to sit in front of my trading screen all day either. The reason we trade forex is to make money. The reason we want to make money is to improve our lifestyle. I also trade forex to give me time, hence my love of robots. Going around in circles here it appears. Most of you know I basically use the same two custom MT4 indicators for most of my trading, that being the MACD Platinum and the QQE Adv. Throw in a LMA and I have more than enough to trade. I ignore news, Fib levels, Pivots, Support/Resistence, Overbought, Oversold, round numbers, candlestick patterns, divergence, moon phases etc. I keep it pretty simple, normally trading off a small time frame in the same direction as a larger time frame. I will take multiple trades, stacking these trades and then using a spreadsheet that I have already shared here, work out an overall position and then manage those trades as a whole.

I use the robots for entry only. They also give me the option of setting emergency stops, or outrageous profit targets, just in case I can’t get to the computer for a day or so. As I run several live accounts and can’t afford to have any down time, they are all run on a VPS. Small monthly expense but certainly worth it. I also use a trade copier so all the charts are only set up on the one platform, so it saves some hassle setting them all up. Money management is also controlled by the trade copier, whic is handy if you want to close all trades out when your account reaches a certain balance, so it can start all over again. I also have a desktop up that runs a mirror demo account with all my charts and my spreadsheets. I do trade multiple pairs on multiple timeframes so have a lot happening at once. I tend to trade the more volatile pairs also. Again refer to the picture I posted earlier in this thread.

The trading works on the EA opening the required trades on the parameters I have set. So I have no say in this and just let the EAs do their thing. Once trades are open (which is all of the time), I’ll update my spreadsheets and keep a very close eye on my margin requirements. All my accounts are set up for hedging, so no problems being long and short at the same time on the same pair, which does help with margin issues. I do keep an eye on overnight interest rates also, as they can rack up pretty quick when you have a large number of trades going the same way, for example if you were long EUR/AUD. Not too bad if you were short though. So a few times during the day I will check the trades and make any necessary adjustments. This may include closing out any baskets of trades that I think are getting out of hand or turning ugly, or it may involve removing an EA and setting hard stops to lock in profit etc. Normally takes me about 15 mins, so I can then go and do things I enjoy.

I tend to keep my position size very small but keep in mind I do use an EA that does increase position size on each new trade opened based on the initial position size. Something I do have to keep an eye on. Having said that, I have another EA that does trade a tad more traditionally, and I even keep that pretty small. It is strictly a numbers game for me, looking to win way more than I lose. Just like any trading I guess. This style of trading does take a little bit getting use to as the majority of the time, your account will be in drawdown which would make some traders very nervous. I have no issues if the profits are constantly ticking over and I am in control of my margin and things aren’t getting out of hand. Something I am trying to teach my son at the moment as he always questions why his account is constantly in the negative, even though his account balance is slowly increasing.

This style of trading is not for everyone. Some traders are quite happy to sit there watching the EUR/USD 1hr chart all night and just taking individual trades on whatever trading method they use. Fair enough. If it works for you, then that’s cool. If it isn’t working or you are getting the same crappy results, then it may be time for a change. Might be time to do what every one else is not doing. Just my opinion.

If anyone would like to discuss this further or would like access to any of my EAs or MT4 custom indicators, feel free to contact me and I will have no problems sharing them with you at no cost. Cheers and good luck with your own trading.

Just a couple of things. You may have noticed a sign up form to the right where I am requesting your email address. This will not be a sales list where I will be bombarding you with weekly emails trying to sell you something. More of a list where I will contact you every now and then with anything I think would be worthwhile, whether it be one of my free EAs or any of my custom MT4 indicators. Your privacy is important to me, so I won’t be passing your details onto any third party.

Eventually I will be hoping to offer a signals type service or even manage private investors money using my own EAs and manual trading methods. I maybe looking for Beta Testers or looking for assistance, so people on my list would be contacted to seek your help. Nil obligation though as it is entirely your choice.

Also to the right, you will see another MyFXBook link to a small live account I have set up with XM. This is just a nano type account where my smallest position size at 0.01 lot is actually equivalent to $0.001 or 1/10th of a cent. With a leverage of 888:1 there is plenty of opportunity to really play with a small account like this and see what is achievable. I deposited $100 to start this account and they threw in a $30 bonus just to give me a little more equity to play with, but keep in mind that this bonus is not counted in my return. I have already received an angry email from XM demanding I remove one of my EAs as it was causing their servers to overload. Just not sure how sch a small account like mine could cause so much drama. Did what they asked and have had to change the way I trade using this same EA. Basically got rid of the trailling stop method. But I urge you to keep an eye on this account as I am very confident that it will produce pretty good results once I work out a comfortable position size for the trading.

Here is something a little different from what I would normally write about – someone else’s forex product. This guy and his team have been around for a while now and their service is pretty comprehensive with some good reviews. It may be something you are interested in. If so, just click on the banner below and that will take you to his page where everything is explained in detail.

You may have noticed that my live Forex Trading account has taken a bit of a hit, as has my demo account. I was experimenting with multiple EAs on the one pair on two different time frames. I found I lost a little control of the whole situation due to me being in a very remote location with limited internet access. I closed all of my live trades last night and this may prove to have been a little premature, hence I want to keep the demo account trades open and running their natural course.

I’m not too concerned as I like to put my systems under the pump on small live accounts just to see how they perform under fire. Demo accounts have their advantages but there is nothing like trading live. Now these losing trades also give me an idea of where I am going wrong and what I can do different next time. I like the idea of multiple EAs on the same pair, but I may have to reassess this and put it on hold for now. My main EA is the SMSF, which I am currently having modified by my Programmer, and this new modified version will be adaptable to the new MT4 build. Looking forward to getting my hands on it and recovering some of these losses.

Happy New Year to all of my fellow Forex Traders out there no matter where you are in the world. I hope you all enjoyed the festive season and managed to catch up with family etc. Every one celebrates this time of the year a little different and I was lucky enough to find myself at home to celebrate with all my family. Now looking forward to 2014 and hoping that the Trading Gods treat me nicely!

I have been a bit slack with regards to updating this site and the main reason being that I took up a new job in Papua New Guinea back in early Oct 2013. This job has me flying out of my home in Australia for four weeks at a time. I am working on a small island in the very north of the country just below the Equator, which has very limited internet access. Well that was up until late December. I return home for two weeks after each four week swing, but it wouldn’t be fair on my family to concentrate on my trading during this break. Now we have much better internet on the island, I am now able to commit more time to this site and my trading activities.

Having said all that, I haven’t been sitting on my hands doing nothing with regards to my Forex Trading. I have been putting a lot of time into testing my EAs as this does not require the internet, just my trusty laptop. I have been concentrating on my SMSF EA as of late as I have recently had it modified to include a couple of filters. Ideally I would love to be able to set it up on the smaller timeframes where there would be a lot more action, but other than the EUR/AUD 1hr chart, I am not having much success with it to date. But I am getting some great results with a lot of pairs on the 4hr charts and some excellent results on most of the pairs using the daily charts. There can be a fair time gap between trades on the daily charts, but trading many pairs reduces this problem somewhat. At the end of the day our main aim is to make money with as little risk as possible, not necessarily have a fun time doing it. Sometimes boring is better!

So I’ll keep on testing this EA and try and dedicate my live MyFXbook account solely to this EA in operation. As you can tell by the results to date, there hasn’t been that much action on the account and that it has been a little up and down. Hopefully it will become a little more consistent now that I have sort of settled on a few set ups and I am now using a conservative money management set up with it also. If anyone would like a free copy of this EA, or would like to assist me with testing of it, I would be more than happy to hear from you. It is easy to contact me through the email address on the ‘contact me’ page on this site.

Now in my previous post I discussed a purely mechanical SAR method of trading. For those that don’t know, SAR means Stop and Reverse. So you are basically closing out a trade in one direction and then opening a new trade in the opposite direction, therefore you are always in the market. Can’t complain of lack of action here…

I do have an EA I designed and had built that is called my SAR EA. This was designed for trading forex, but I have run a few successful tests on Gold and Oil via the MT4 platform also. Now the method involved in this EA has absolutely nothing to do with the SAR mechanical method mentioned in the previous post, so I don’t want to confuse anyone.

Until I work out how to add downloadable files to wordpress ie the EA and custom indicators, I’ll have to re-direct you to my thread at Forex Factory that covers this topic in detail. Here you can download everything and also check out other videos. Go to the Forex Factory thread.

Well it’s not exactly new as I have traded forex using this system before. That was a a few years back as part of a trading team that concentrated on three currency pairs only, and only traded the 1hr charts. It was hard work due to the constant checking of charts. Sleep was rare until the weekly target was achieved. Anyway, I’ve started a thread over at Forex Factory about this system, so instead of doubling up with all the same information, just go to this link and check it out.

I have done up a couple of videos to explain it all a little better, which can be seen below. Also better if you watch these in HD. Nothing too professional here as my video skills are limited…

This 2nd video just shows an example of how the system would handle a sideways market.

With the previous demo account results I had running from MyFXbook, the results stopped updating last week and my investor password went missing so I decided just to close that account and start afresh. It was only a demo account, so nothing lost. I’ll keep it in my records in case anyone wants to see the details again. It closed with a balance of just over $14,000 and if my memory serves me correctly, it was from a starting balance of about $12,294 on the 1st July 2013.

Anyway I have opened a new $10,000 demo account with HotForex with leverage of 500:1 as of today (3rd Sept 2013). This account is called SMSF and you can see the results in the right hand sidebar in place of the old demo account. At the moment, I have only added a EUR/USD 1hr chart to it, which is running one of my EAs. This has had some pretty good results in back testing to date, so I have just lowered my base lot size initially just to see how it performs under forward testing. I will hopefully add further pairs once I have completed some further back testing, keeping in mind all currency pairs have different ranges and ways of moving in their trends. One size doesn’t fit all.

And as usual, if anyone wants some further info on any of my EAs or trading ideas, feel free to contact me at anytime. Everything is free, so it won’t cost you a cent just to ask.

Well I have now set up a live account on MyFXbook that will monitor one of my accounts with Alpari UK. I will be using one of my EAs for entries and then I will manually manage the trades as I see fit. These will initially be on the 4hr charts so it gives me plenty of time to make sensible trading decisions. Well that’s the plan anyway. If all goes well, and if anyone is interested, I am more than happy to share my set up with you, including free access to my custom MT4 indicators and my own EAs. If you look to the right hand sidebar, the top MyFXbook widget now refers to this live account. There is also a little information on ‘My Trading Results’ page.

As you know I’ve been trading Forex on and off for more than 10 years now. It has been a long time where I have just about seen everything. One thing I have experienced is Live Trading Rooms. I’m actually in one as I type this. It is on my 2nd monitor with the moderator yapping away in the background. Not really interested in joining their program but there are times I like to see what other traders are doing and how they are looking at the markets. One other reason is that sometimes trading can be a very lonely lifestyle, especially if you are a sole trader just trading from home. Not sure about you guys, but none of my personal friends or family are Forex Traders, so I don’t really have anyone to talk to about it. Therefore forums and trading rooms can sometimes get you involved in a like minded group. There are thousands of retail traders around the world, and with the internet these days, the world is a small place.

Now to the Live Trading Rooms. Other than the trading banter and the feeling of being involved in the market, are they a good thing? One thing about them is that they mainly involve short term trading, usually taking trades off charts 1hr and below. So basically they are either scalping or taking smallish swing trades that are session based. So if you entered a room at the start of the London session, then you would normally trade this entire session and possibly into the US session, and about 10hrs later you may call it quits. You would probably finish up with no open trades. In the process you may have taken 2-20 trades during this period. On the odd occasion you may have a trade left open that has taken off in your favour big time, so when you go to bed, that trade is in a position that it can’t lose no matter what happens when you are asleep. Does happen, but not that often.

The problem with trading in live rooms is that it requires plenty of chart watching and plenty of concentration. Trust me, I know this as I have done it plenty of times in the past. It is hard work, especially at home when there are plenty of other distractions like TV, kids, housework and your significant other wanting to spend quality time with you. It would be much easier if you actually left the house and went to an office to join the trading room, or even went and physically sat in a trading room. More like a real 8hr a day job. Another problem for me is my time zone, as being in Australia the London session starts around 6pm local. Great time with regards to sleep etc as normally I could trade until 2am quite easily and then call it a day. But from 6pm is normally the time everyone else is getting home from school/work and it is time for dinner/social events. Even worse if you have a normal job during the day and then want to trade during the evening. This is mentally and physically draining and not healthy for you. Again, I’ve been there and burnt out big time. Gone are the days I had a bed in my home office..

So what’s the solution? I would strongly suggest that you ditch the live trading rooms. Have a look and maybe learn a technique or at least get some ideas from them, but don’t become addicted to any one room. I would say the same about forums. Good to have a look every now and then, but don’t get hooked into them as they too can be quite addictive. They are also a little dishonest for my liking due to the anonymity of the internet. Don’t believe everything you read! What I have found that works for me and gives me a much more balanced lifestyle, is trading off the 4hr charts. I have a fairly simple system that uses my own EAs for entry on multiple pairs. As these are on the 4hr charts, it gives me plenty of time to monitor the charts at my leisure, where I can then manually manage the trades as I see fit. This can all be done around a normal job and your normal sleep patterns. So basically I check my trades whenever I get a chance, but I won’t get too stressed if I can’t get to them for several hours. And the beauty of modern technology is that I can do this from any of my mobile devices whether it be my laptop, iPhone or iPad. I don’t have to be at my desktop computer. I am a MT4 trader and have 4-5 live accounts with different brokers on the go at any one time. All my broker’s platforms are set up on my VPS account which costs me about US$50/mth to run (cost of doing business) and using my Logmein App on any of my devices, I can access my desktop computer, which in turn gives me access to my VPS platform. If I can’t be bothered with that, then there is the Metatrader App on the iPhone and iPad. Great app if you are a MT4 trader.

Ever since I have gone out to the longer time frames, my trading has become way more relaxed with minimal stress. I’m not saying there are no losing trades (I wish!) but due to the fact that you have way more time to make trading decisions, you actually have more time to make a better decision without being rushed or put under the pump. Obviously your position sizes maybe smaller, but having said that, your stops maybe further out but so are your profit targets. It is all relevant and works out in the wash. Sure it is not as exciting as trading off the 5 min charts as there may be days without any trades, so it can be like watching paint dry at times. That’s the trade off.

If you are interested in learning more about my trading style, you can either ask me directly via my email at accurateforextrader@gmail.com or you can just continue reading posts on this blog as I’ll eventually spill the beans on it. I’m happy to share my custom MT4 indicators or any of my EAs with anyone that asks. These are free just for being a reader. So, what sort of forex trader are you?

Below you will find a video of my SAR EA (Expert Advisor) in action on the 1hr chart.. It just gives an overview of how it performs. I have had a couple of slightly different EAs built which are based on the same two custom MT4 indicators. If anyone would like these indicators or any of the EAs mentioned on this site, just drop me an email and I’ll happily send you a copy at no cost. Just keep in mind that there is risk involved, and even though they are trading robots, I would still strongly recommend that you watch them from time to time just to make sure they aren’t doing anything silly. They are not perfect. Best if you change the video settings to watch it in HD. Just click on the little cog symbol at bottom right of video.

You are probably wondering why I am even building this website. Fair question I say. There is no real need for me to tell the world about my forex trading or experiences in this field. I could quite simply just keep on trading my own accounts, slowly but surely building my account size without any other distractions. But I am a sucker for punishment and like to keep my brain active. Trading off the 4hr charts using a semi-automated EA isn’t exactly time consuming, so I have plenty of spare time on my hands.

Completing this website not only helps up and coming forex traders gain extra knowledge, it also helps keep me accountable. I wish I had started this thing several years ago as it might have saved me some money and accounts. There is no doubt about, forex trading can be an emotional roller coaster. Things sometimes go well and other times not so well. I always figure if you can’t sleep when you have open trades, then you are in the poo and it is best if you do something about it pronto!

By me posting my methods and also my trading results, it ensures that I put an effort into my trading and take it a little more seriously. There may not be anyone reading this website or there maybe thousands (I wish) reading it. I don’t really know at this stage, but that’s not important. All I know is that somebody out there in this great big world will read about it one day, so that is enough to keep me motivated and hopefully profitable.

Education is also important to me. I started looking at forex back in 2002. Things were a lot different then and most of my education came from trolling trading forums to see what I could pick up along the way. Nowadays things are a lot easier, but having said that, the market is also saturated with scammers and other low life’s that just want to relieve the wanna be trader of their hard earned cash. So from what I have learnt and published over the years, I figure that I can help guide the new traders through this minefield without all the hassles and just make their trading adventure a little easier.

Ultimately if I can prove my trading expertise in the public domain, then I would consider making my services available as a fund manager, which basically means trading other people’s money. First I have prove myself with real money in real trading accounts. Tools like MyFXbook help achieve these outcomes.

So that’s about it and the reasons I am doing this. I do enjoy helping others, so that is probably the main reason behind it all. The other stuff will take of itself as long as I do the right thing by others…

Sometime ago I wrote a number of Ezine articles about forex trading. These pretty well cover the basics of trading in a very simple way so even the absolute beginner could understand and have enough confidence to at least start demo trading. I will reproduce these articles on this site, and hopefully won’t get Google slapped for copyright infringement, even though I am the original author. There may be a few minor tweaks as obviously I have learnt a few things since and probably have changed my way of thinking on a few of the topics.

I have a strong interest in developing my own forex trading systems, where I then convert these systems into EAs. Well I don’t actually do that, as I get my gun Programmer, Christina, to do it for me. She runs a company called Wise-EA, and if you need any programming done in this space, I highly recommend her. Maybe I should learn programming myself and save a few bucks. Looks too confusing to me, but you never know, maybe one day.

EA is short for Expert Advisor, which is just a flash name for a trading robot software that is attached to your trading platform that takes trades on your behalf depending on what your stipulated trading rules are. They are great for making sure you don’t miss entries and also take the emotion out of entering trades. But do not think that EAs are the be all and end all. They do have their limitations and can’t think like a human brain. I tend to use them for entry only and then manually manage the trades from there. However I do know that if I can’t get to my trading platform for whatever reason, I know the EA will look after things until I can get back to my charts.

Forex trading is not easy, but if you can be consistently profitable with it, the rewards can be great, whether this means lots of money, getting out of your current job, working your desired hours, more family time, working from anywhere you wish etc etc. I’ve been doing it on and off for just over 10 years now (I am a slow learner), made plenty of mistakes along the way, but now slowly but surely getting it together. It hasn’t been easy, and at the end of the day, it is just a matter of keeping it pretty simple and using good money management. I love this stuff, so there will be plenty more to follow, including all of my Ezine articles….

Welcome back to Accurate Forex Trader! I have been missing for a couple of months due to the fact that my web hosting company went wheels up, taking all my data and 20+ websites with it. Bit of a bummer, but at least I learnt a valuable lesson, and that’s to back up everything. So now I have to start from scratch, so this site will be a work in progress. This site will be dedicated to my Forex Trading, but if you want to know a bit more about me and my thoughts, you can go over to JAGfx.com and here I will discuss many things that interest me, including my trading.

To get the ball rolling, I have had a new EA built called SMSF which I am currently forwarding testing on a demo account. This demo account does have a link to MyFXbook which you can see below. This is a demo account I have had for a while now which started with a balance of $10,000. I began testing this EA on the 1st July when the balance was at $12,294.77. I am also testing it in a small way on a live account. I’ll update details on this later.

Warning and Disclaimer : Something I have put here is to advise everyone that Forex Trading is risky. You could lose some or all of your money if you trade forex. I think that is pretty obvious to most, so this warning is just aimed at the minority. It may look easy this forex trading, but believe me it isn’t, and you will suffer losess along the way. The trick is to win more than you lose overall. Anything I write on this site is not to be considered financial advice, so don’t follow my trading. Everything I write here is just my opinion or what I am doing in my trading. I cannot give you specific trading advice. So be warned, this trading can be a risky business, so protect your capital so you live to trade another day.

If you want to be kept in the loop and here more about Forex Trading, then just add your email address below. Your privacy is safe with me. Thanks.

If you feel you have gained something from visiting this site and would like to contribute, feel free to donate via PayPal with whatever amount you wish. Half will go to a charity of my choice and the other half will help with EA development. Thanks.